


Secrets

by madlyhazel



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hanzo Has a Lot On His Mind, M/M, lots of yelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 02:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8560975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madlyhazel/pseuds/madlyhazel
Summary: Twenty years of concealing his emotions has made Hanzo a difficult man. Twenty years of trying to save Hanzo has made Jesse a broken man. Jesse won't let Hanzo slip away from him again.





	

There isn’t much of a breeze. That’s good. Even with as heavy as his arrows are, even the smallest breeze can set them off his target if he doesn’t adjust accordingly. His shoulders are relaxed, and his arms just tense enough to support the bow. It’s quiet, which helps for concentration. His mind is clear, and all he’s focused on is the target ahead of him, sitting serenely. All in all, it’s the perfect condition to work in.

He inhales deeply, raising the bow up and locking in an arrow. Slowly, two fingers draw it back, the taut string no tougher than dough with all the strength he puts into it. The fletchling gingerly caresses his cheek, sliding up until it just barely touched the shell of his ear. He stares dead on at the target, his body completely rigid. No movement escaped him—he’d even stopped breathing. All of his thoughts needed to be pushed toward the target. He needed to envision the arrow soaring and embedding itself. Only then would it hit true.

With a quick and sharp exhale, his fingers released the arrow. It parted the air around it with a whoosh, moving faster than his eye could follow. Despite the target being several feet back, it only took a moment for the arrow to find its mark. The shaft wavered slightly as the last of its movement subsided, its tip deeply embedded inside of the target dummy. Straight through the heart. Even someone wearing thick armor wouldn’t be safe from Hanzo Shimada’s bow.

A whistle rings out behind him, high and piercing. He doesn’t bother to turn. He knows who it is.

“Remind me to never get on your bad side, yeah?”

Jesse swaggered forward, draping an arm across Hanzo’s shoulders and leaning the both of them forward, peering at the target. He whistled again, a bit lower this time. “Jaysus, Hanzo. You got some issues you need to work out or…?”

“I am just training.” The archer shrugs his shoulders, causing Jesse’s arm to fall away. The cowboy huffs, sticking his hip out and taking a long drag from his cigar. He waves it about in the air, the light smoke trailing along lazily. The smell is strong, if even a bit unappetizing, but Hanzo has grown used to it. It’s part of Jesse. If he didn’t smell like tobacco, then he simply wouldn’t be the same.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He sticks the cigar back in his mouth, securing it between his teeth. He’s mastered the art of speaking through it, and his voice is only just barely slurred. It’s nearly imperceptible. Scratching his chest, he hums. “But you’ve been out here for a while. I was starting to get worried about you.”

Hanzo briefly glanced up at the sky. It wasn’t dark out, but the sun was beginning to move toward the mountains in the distance. They were dark and foggy against the horizon, but it wouldn’t be long before they were illuminated in oranges and reds and purples. He was fairly certain he’d started practicing at about mid-afternoon, but it was impossible to say now.

“Do not worry about me,” he responds, voice low and monotone, “I just wanted to test myself.”

He sniffs, turning around and facing Jesse. The cowboy is staring at him—scrutinizing, really. Despite playing off as a naïve man with few cares in the world, he was incredibly perceptive. Years of scratching his life out in the Deadlock Gang and working under Blackwatch made him learn to notice the smallest changes in a person. The slightest difference could show whether or not someone was preparing to kill you. He had to learn how to save his own life.

Now, he used it against Hanzo. He was searching for the answer as to why the archer was off. There was a certain rigidity to his stance, and his face was harder than usual. Hanzo attempted to throw up a mask and hide against Jesse’s abilities, but it was of no use. He’d already let the slightest hint of weakness slip, and the man had latched onto that like a predator. He would tussle with it and pry it apart until he got the answers he was looking for.

“What’s on your mind?”

Well, that was awfully blunt for having just pulled him apart like an old book. Hanzo’s eyes narrowed, and he straightened out his posture. Jesse didn’t need to know. This was his issue, and it would be solved in time. Or he would lock it away in the back of his mind, only pulling it out when he was feeling especially melancholy in the night. Either way, it was not a subject Jesse needed to broach with a heart as big as his.

So, he offered the cowboy a solid look, just barely glancing up at him. “I am fine. Let us get to dinner.”

He brushed past Jesse, and the man almost reached out. His fingers twitched at his side, ready to latch onto Hanzo’s kimono and pull him back. Having known him for several years now, Jesse could tell when he was hiding something. Years ago, when they were much younger and more reckless, he’d begun to learn all the intricacies that were Hanzo Shimada. Back then, he’d angered the archer. He was loud and obnoxious and held no care for the private lives of others. He wanted to know everything, and it had often gotten him in trouble.

Enough bloody noses and bruised ribs finally taught him to respect people’s space, but that didn’t mean it’d kept him from trying to learn. He worked in more covert ways from then on, gathering everything he could from asking simple questions and observing actions. So when Hanzo disappeared after his brother’s untimely and gruesome death, Jesse was the first to know something had gone terribly wrong. But then, it was too late. There was nothing to be done.

He’d only caught glimpses of Hanzo in fleeting glances, the archer slipping away from his grasp like smoke. Overwatch may have been torn asunder, but Jesse still searched desperately for the man he’d called friend. Trips to Japan revealed so little, and when he’d once found Hanzo, no amount of begging and shed tears could bring the man back. In so few years, Jesse had seen the man grow older than he could imagine. He’d greyed early, dark circles decorated his eyes, and lines appeared with every frown.

Still, when Hanzo turned his back on him in Japan, Jesse swore he could see an intense pain and sadness in his eyes. He regretted everything he’d done, but he knew he was too far gone to fix it. In order to rid himself of any memories surrounding his brother, he pushed away everything that was connected to him. He ripped out every chunk that was once associated with anything Genji had ever touched, and he abandoned Jesse and Overwatch. It had hurt like hell.

So when Winston had called the organization back into action, Jesse hadn’t expected Hanzo to come back. As far as he’d been concerned, the man was an enigma. He was furious at that ghost, enraged that despite everything he’d done, the archer tossed him away. But how could he be mad when he saw Hanzo step off an airship, looking haggard and nervous and every bit the man Jesse had once known? He’d cried like a little kid, and the archer mocked him, saying he hadn’t changed a bit. The cowboy told him to shut his fucking mouth. And for the first time in a decade, they laughed.

They were never the same, of course. Hanzo still avoided his past like the plague, and Jesse had a bit of a darker humor. Still, they made up for lost time. They talked more and were attached at the hip, mutterings lazy nothings or telling stories about “remember when.” They grew closer in a new way, one more intimate and primal. Behind closed doors, they spoke of what they’d wanted to say years ago but were too scared to. These conversations were of sighs and whispers, but it was still a language they spoke. And Jesse was happy.

The cowboy followed after Hanzo, glancing down at him as they passed through too brightly lit hallways with enclosed walls. The watchpoints seemed to be very specific in not making themselves feel like a home, despite being a place when operatives often worked out of for several weeks. One usually grew used to it after enough time, but the narrow buildings could still make them feel uncomfortable. Jesse wrapped his arm around Hanzo’s shoulders once again, and he could feel the man stiffen.

“Seriously, what’s got your goat? You’re making me think of the time I went to one of those Korean spas.” He snorted. “They’re nice ladies, but a man has space, you know?”

Hanzo didn’t laugh. He merely gritted his teeth and sighed through his nose, shrugging his shoulders again. Jesse held on. “Have you forgotten that sticking your nose in others business has often gotten it broken?”

The words were exceptionally harsh, even if they weren’t meant to be. It made Jesse briefly stall, almost tripping over his own feet. “That was uncalled for.”

“I told you, I do not want to speak of it. Let it be.”

“I just want to help you, Hanzo.”

“It is not your problem.”

“You’re making it my problem.”

Jesse moved to stand in front of Hanzo. The archer almost had half the mind to keep walking straight through him, to push him aside. He may have been shorter than the cowboy, but he was stronger. It would only take him moments to shove past him and continue on his way. Despite his thoughts, he planted his feet firmly on the ground and tilted his chin up toward the man.

Jesse stared down with equal vigor, having taken his cigar out of his mouth. The hand holding it hung limply down at his side, and the acrid smoke tickled both of their noses. Neither of them were ready to budge; Hanzo wouldn’t tell Jesse anything, and Jesse wasn’t leaving until he got answers. The air was thick with tension, and anyone who happened to pass by would probably be wise to scurry off.

“Why you avoiding me?”

Hanzo felt his hands tighten into fists, but he forced them to relax. “I am not—“

“Bullshit.”

The cowboy dropped his cigar to the floor, putting it out with his foot. At a later point he’d come back and pick it up himself, but it was better to get it out of the way for now.

“You think I’m blind?” Jesse questioned sharply, throwing his arms out. “I’m a goddamn sharpshooter, pal. I try and talk to you, or touch you, or anything, and you shrug me off like some fly. If you’ve got beef with me, just tell me. It’s better than blowing me off.”

Hanzo forced himself to keep standing, to not take a step back. Jesse was generally a jovial person, but he could yell with the best of them. His words cut deep, and he knew it. He was trying to get Hanzo to open up by slicing into him. It wasn’t the nicest of ways to go about it, but the cowboy was getting tired. He’d been pushed away before, and he wasn’t about to let it happen again.

“You do not have to know everything, Jesse McCree,” the archer snapped back, his words biting, “Sometimes things are better left unsaid. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Why is it—“

“So impossible to get through my thick head, huh? It’s because I care about you, and you’re not letting me help you. You’re changing, and I’m trying to stop it.”

“People change!”

“Not like you do!” Jesse was throwing his chest out, and his eyes were alight with a flame Hanzo rarely saw. “Why won’t you let me help you? I don’t judge you, I don’t make fun of you. But you won’t talk to me.”

“I am done. Let me past.”

Hanzo began to sidestep him, but Jesse wasn’t about to let this go. He was soon grabbing Hanzo’s shoulder and wrist, wrestling him back until he was pinned against the wall. He wasn’t forceful enough to hurt, but he needed to get Hanzo locked down. The man would continue to let his problems eat at him until he was entirely consumed. Jesse couldn’t let that happen again. He couldn’t stand another heartbreak.

The anger in Hanzo’s eyes was intense, but Jesse stared right on back. He wasn’t going to back down. Even as the archer pushed and struggled against him, trying to pull his arms away so he could push the cowboy back, he wouldn’t let go. Hanzo may have been stronger than him, but Jesse was nothing if not a man fueled by genuine concern. So long as something was wrong with Hanzo, his strength would be tenfold.

“Get off of me.”

“Why are you so afraid to talk?” His voice was lower, but the bitterness was still present. “Are you embarrassed of me, huh? Is that it? I’ve been your friend for nearly twenty years and you’re—“

“Don’t touch me.”

He shoved him back against the wall, setting his jaw. “Listen to me, Hanzo! I’m not letting you leave again. If you think you can outrun your problems, you’re fucking stupid. You wanna know why? I tried to do the same thing. I ran because I was too scared to deal with my demons, and it got me trapped in a dark place. I only got out because I stood up like a man and talked to Jack. I told him all of the shit I was going through. I was meaner than a badger about it, but I told him.

“You and I both know I didn’t volunteer for Overwatch. I either had the option of being thrown into jail for the rest of my life, or I joined Overwatch and left all that behind me. Fuck, man, I was a kid having to make all of these decisions. But I did it because I didn’t want to throw my life away. I was young, but I knew it was better to face my problems and talk them out than hide like you are. I’m trying to protect you, but you want to run away again. Why?”

Hanzo had such great malice in his eyes, but the hatred wasn’t toward Jesse. There was definitely anger directed toward the cowboy, but the despise was reflected from within. He knew what he was doing wasn’t going to help him, and that it would just throw him further into an abyss of emotions that would destroy him. Killing his brother tore his soul apart, and it made him into a man he hated. He spoke of pride and wisdom to the younger members of Overwatch, inspiring them to be a better person.

But what was he? He was just a broken man, someone overtaken by their past. Every problem to him was magnified into a boulder he struggled to carry. Weight was piled upon his back, and he didn’t have the strength of Atlas. In time, he would give in and be crushed. But it was too hard for him to admit his faults. He couldn’t admit he was wrong. He couldn’t tell Jesse, the man he loved, that he felt insignificant and powerless.

“Let go of me.”

Jesse stared at him for several long, agonizing moments, but sure enough his hands fell away. He stepped back from Hanzo, his hands falling down at his sides. The pain on his face was indescribable, and his throat worked to hold back his crumbling emotions.

“So that’s it, huh?” He let out a short, choked laugh, reaching up a hand to tilt his hat down. “I go exposing my heart to you and it’s not enough. I was hoping you’d see something, Hanzo. I’m trying so hard.”

Hanzo simply stared at the man, using the wall as a support. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand on his own without it. Before him, Jesse looked as if Hanzo had shoved a knife into him. He looked hurt and betrayed and sad, and it was painful to see. How could he do this to him?

“It is not my goal to hurt you, Jesse.”

“Really? Because you hit the target dead on. What’s it you say? That it takes every amount of your mind to hit true?”

The archer winced. “… Why am I so important to you?”

Jesse gave him a dumbfounded look, shaking his head. “Why is that even a question? You were my first friend. You showed me that I don’t have to fight to survive. You would meditate with me in the gardens, remember? I hated tea, still do, but I would sit down and drink it with you and you’d show me how to clear my mind. I was awful at it, but you were patient.”

Hanzo had thought Jesse was a useless case when he first met him. He was scrawny and cocky and had the whole world going against him. He’d started talking to him at first because he felt genuinely sorry for the boy. They were only a year apart, but Jesse had seemed so much more naïve. Hanzo wanted to tutor him, to show him that he didn’t have to be such an idiot to get through life. He would laugh at him and tell him he was never going to get anything right, but Jesse was filled with determination.

He’d been so surprised how close he’d grown to the cowboy. God, he dressed like a cowboy. When he came into Overwatch he’d, for some ungodly reason, started dressing up like a cowboy. Perhaps it was because he wanted to stand out and be the center of attention, since he never had been before, but Hanzo had thought he looked so stupid. He told him to dress more proper, even offered to buy him clothes. But Jesse wore his hat, belt, and shoes and paraded around like the great cowboys of the old west, proclaiming outdated catchphrases and tilting his hat at everyone he saw.

He’d been ridiculous. And it made Hanzo love him more and more every day.

So seeing him like this now caused his heart to clench and his chest to tighten. Jesse looked so genuinely upset, all because Hanzo was too afraid to tell him how inadequate he felt. And wasn’t he acting like such right now? He was too weak to even tell Jesse his problems. The man was bleeding for him, wearing his heart on his sleeve, and Hanzo shoved him aside. He was cruel. He hated it.

Jesse sniffed, reaching up his hand and rubbing at his eye with the heel of it. “Dammit, man, I’m just tired of being your secret.”

Secret? Hanzo stared on at him, brows knitting together.

“I do not… You are not my secret.”

Jesse tried to laugh, but it came out as a strangled sob. “Yeah? Is that why you push me away? Is that why you won’t let me hug you in the dining hall? You won’t let me near you in front of everyone else?”

Hanzo had believed everyone knew of his and Jesse’s relationship, but he supposed he had been avoidant of the cowboy. Part of it was in modesty, but part of it was in his own feelings of self-doubt. Jesse was so open with his emotions, yet the archer found himself lacking. He was never able to be as affectionate or as amiable toward Jesse as he was to him. He was worried all of his emotions were too stunted from having been held back for so long.

They were openly together, yet in some way Hanzo felt shamed. Jesse was too bright, too good, like a star he could never quite reach. He was all smiles and quips, and everyone adored him. But none loved him so much as Hanzo, but they would never know that. The archer was too fearful of his emotions, afraid he would let out more than he intended. So he kept himself locked away, and in the process, he’d hurt Jesse.

He inhaled deeply, raising his hand.

Jesse just stared on at him, deflated and broken. “Go on, then,” he jabbed, voice barely above a whisper, “Hit me like you used to back then. If it makes you feel better, just do it.”

Hanzo touched the side of the cowboy’s face, cradling his jaw in an unsure embrace. Jesse flinched slightly, staring down in confusion and hurt. If he was going to hit him, Jesse thought he should just get it over with. Dragging it out only broke him more.

“Jesse McCree,” Hanzo breathed out, his posture sagging and his tension fleeing. He was tired. Like a huge wave, exhaustion hit him. All that time keeping his emotions at bay spent him emotionally and physically. But for now, for Jesse, he needed to continue on.

“I do not mean to treat you as something shameful. I just feel so inadequate, like I will never be enough for you. I am a man of many faults, and I am not particularly forthcoming. I have suffered many failures, and each one has broken me down into the man you see before you. I want to hide away like I always have. I am afraid of being hurt. I speak of my own strength to initiates, yet there is none. I am no better than a liar and a cheat.

“But I never want to hurt you. I now know that every time I have pushed you away and ignored you, trying to protect myself, I have caused you a great pain. I never meant to do that. You mean so much to me, and when everyone else looks down on me for my mistakes, you always smile and tell me everything will be alright. You are too kind to me. And I thank you for that.

“I love you. And I am sorry.”

Jesse stared down at him, tears becoming present in his eyes. He wanted to be strong, but hearing Hanzo admit his fears was far too much for him. The man always pretended to be the better man, and he never let himself be exposed. But he opened up to Jesse out of sheer guilt and sorrow, and it was both relieving and painful to the cowboy. The tears spilled over his eyes and down his tanned cheeks, and Hanzo leaned forward, gently kissing them away.

“You haven’t changed.”

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

It was a lot less potent considering the amount of hiccups between words, but they laughed together nonetheless.

Hanzo would not be able to completely open up in one day, and Jesse knew that. It would take time for Hanzo to recover everything he’d shoved away in the dark recesses of his mind. He would have to struggle every day with opening himself up to the world, and often he wouldn’t be able to. Some days he would smile and hug Jesse back, while others he would curl in on himself and shut down. It was never easy, and Jesse didn’t expect it to be.

He was just glad that the archer was deciding to try. He would fail many times, and he might even give up. The cowboy knew that, and he was willing to pick up the pieces and motivate Hanzo to try again. Luckily, failure was rarely an option for either of them. They were both far too proud to admit that they’d been overcome, and no doubt Hanzo would continue working to the best of his ability. He could never completely shake off the demons that haunted him, but he could at least shoulder past them with a smile on his face.

And for Jesse, that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I generally don't post non-smut stories on my AO3, but I was really proud of this one. It was a challenge prompt to see if I could write a short fic in under 24 hours, and here we are. It is a little shorter than my usual stuff, but I like to think it turned out alright.
> 
> If you have any requests, hit me up at madlyhazel.tumblr.com


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